isogashii hito no tame no gaming seikatsu
Preventing Game Limbo
Story as old as time: you're in the middle of a long, long game (usually an RPG), life gets busy, you take a break. By the time you return, you remember nothing. You've saved in the middle of something complicated, you don't recall how to play... Now you have to choose between re-learning everything or start all over. Catch-22, and your game progress is killed by inertia. My save file for Final Fantasy VII has fallen to that exact fate.
How do we stop this from happening? Well, outside of just never committing to long games, I mean? Here's some practical tips I've learned from my own mistakes and less-than-graceful interruptions: little habits that have outright saved a couple game playthroughs for me recently.
Ease Out
I took long, multi-month breaks from both Blue Reflection and its sequel, Second Light, which are both medium-length JRPGs. To make matters worse, I was dead-set on doing 100% runs of both games, which meant closely following a mix of guides and personal notes to make sure I didn't accidentally pass by missables.
What helped me finally get that 100% in Blue Reflection after 56 hours, and stay on track for an eventual 100% in Second Light (71 hours and counting!) was spending a little time to "phase out" of playing when I knew I'd be getting busy. Practically, this meant short "housekeeping" sessions in 10-30 minute bursts to tie up loose ends. My goal was to to minimize the amount of stuff I was "in the middle of," clearing out sidequests, backlogged crafting, and so on.
The less to keep track of, the cleaner environment I could return to so it'd be easy to pick things up again when I had the time.
Ever babysit or volunteer at a daycare or youth center? You get the kids to clean up their toys when they're done playing, putting things in their right place so they're easy to find next time. Same idea here.
Note to Self!
Even if you don't consider yourself a note-taker, just write a brief bulleted list of what you were in the middle of. Format and formality don't matter--just make sure it's comprehensible by your future self. Steam has a notes app in its overlay, but a sticky-note on the inside of your game case or a little text file on your phone will do the job just fine.
Practical example: those egregiously easy-to-mess-up stat point allocations. For E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy, an infamously opaque game, I had a little Markdown text file with a table showing my desired final stat allocation and my current stats. No matter how long of a break I took (and I took a lot of breaks when playing through E.Y.E.) I could always bring up that table and know that I was spec'ing my character based on the build I had planned long ago. Do I remember why the numbers looked the way they did? Nope. But I had it all in a table and the assurance from my past self that it was the way to go. I could figure out the rest again later.
Oh, and "read the in-game quest log / journal" is click-bait tier obvious. Use in-game resources to help re-orient yourself, but definitely use notes to supplement with purpose-written tidbits for your specific style like "wait until lv50 before starting colosseum" and "ABC is missable, do immediately!" Make things easier for future you.
Roll On, Saves
If you're not already in the habit of making rolling saves, then I beg you, please start. It's simple: just keep multiple save files for a single run of the game, and rotate through round-robin. Save in Slot 1, then 2, then 3, then loop back to 1 again. Why do this? It's insurance. Make a permanent mistake but already saved? No problem, just roll back to a slightly earlier save.
This makes it much easier to get back into complicated or unforgiving games where mistakes can otherwise be costly and permanent. I'm the kind of player that likes to do things optimally, perfectly, obsessively. I look up questions like "what missables did you wish you knew about when starting" and "can you permanently mess up your build". But the more complex a game is, the more inevitable mistakes are. Letting yourself mess up on your return, and having multiple safety saves when you do, buys you some leeway while you readjust.
For games that only support a single save slot, I take matters into my own hands. I manually back up the literal save file, either renaming it with a .bak or .old extension, or stowing it safely in another folder. Life's too short to lose a missable, then live with the hanging cloud of "I'll do it right in my next playthrough" when that next playthrough might never happen.
Final Thoughts - The Head Game
I don't know about you, but I hate being interrupted while having a good time. But rolling with the punches was a key to shrugging off the inconvenience when practical life matters have to take center stage. There's definitely the "important things come first" mantra that I won't belabor, but I want to talk about what comes after.
I'll make this part short. I'm an optimizer at heart, an achievement hunter, a challenge chaser at the best (worst) times. When I have an hour free, you know I'll try to use it for something. But after some days, there's just nothing left in me to play anything. That's my cue to give myself a break and sleep early.
As I grow older, the era of long marathon gaming sessions that follow long marathon work sessions is, regrettably, coming to a close. I'd rather enjoy a well-rested short session on the weekend than try to force a late-night gaming grind on an empty fuel tank.
Everyone's make-up is different, but I have a feeling that most of us could benefit from an extra hour or two of sleep when things get busy: arguably when we need that rest the most. The WIP save file can wait.
Just... write yourself a note if you can.